Certain di-tert-butylphenol compounds and other compounds structurally related thereto have been found to have significant anti-inflammatory and/or analgesic activity. Such compounds are disclosed in the following references: U.S. Pat. No. 3,784,701 issued to Tomcufcik, Grassing & Sloboda on Jan. 8, 1974; U.S. Pat. No. 4,124,725 issued to Moore on Nov. 7, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 4,130,666 issued to Moore on Dec. 19, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 4,535,165 issued to Moore on Aug. 13, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 4,636,516 issued to Kubo, Isomura, Sakamoto & Homma on Jan. 13, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,113 issued to Bell & Moore on Jun. 30, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,708,966 issued to Loomans, Matthews & Miller on Nov. 24, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,714,776 issued to Bell & Moore on Dec. 22, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,710 issued to Rustad on Nov. 6, 1990; EPO Patent Application No. 0,211,670 of Panetta (Eli Lilly & Company), published Feb. 25, 1987; EPO Patent Application No. 0,286,364 of Scherrer & Rustad (Riker Laboratories, Inc.), published Oct. 12, 1988; Japanese Patent No. 80/15,460 of Noda, Nakagawa, Hirano, Tsuji & Ide (Jpn. Kokai, Tokkyo Koho), published Feb. 2, 1980; Hidaka, Hosoe, Ariki, Takeo, Yamashita, Katsumi, Kondo, Yamashita & Watanabe, "Pharmacological Properties of a New Anti-inflammatory Compound, a(3,5-di-tertbutyl-4-hydroxybenzylidene)-g-butyrolactone (KME-4), and its Inhibitory Effects on Prostaglandin Synthetase and 5-lipoxygenase", Jpn. J. Pharmacol, Vol. 36, No. 1 (1984), pp. 77-85; and VanDerGoot, H., J. C. Eriks, P. J. VanRhijn-VanDerSchaar, O. P. Zuiderveld & W. T. Nauta, "The Synthesis and Antiinflammatory Activity of Substituted 2-4-Hydroxyphenyl-1,3-indandiones", European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Vol. 13, No. 5 (1978), pp. 425-428.
Although a number of di-tert-butylphenol compounds have been demonstrated to exhibit anti-inflammatory activity, many such compounds exhibits little or no anti-inflammatory activity. The unpredictability of this property makes it necessary to screen each compound of the class to determine whether it possesses such activity.
It is an object of the subject invention to provide a compound which has effective anti-inflammatory, analgesic and/or anti-arthritic activity.
It is a further object of the subject invention to provide methods for treating inflammation, pain and/or arthritis using the compound.